Position reporting map - Yotreps died

[Paul L]

I've used Yotreps that was on the pangolin site for years to keep a daily track of our position. It was easy to use by sending a very short email. It was easy to link from a blog to the cumulative track history and free.
Yotreps has retired. It was my understanding that it was taken over by oceantracking.com. That site doesn't seem to be updating new reports.

Anyone have an alternative they like?

[semaphore]

https://spotwalla.com supports lots of gps trackers, as well as email support.

https://spotwalla.com/help/devices.php#iface-email

[gpeacock]

I'll put a plug in for Farkwar. Its free, pretty easy to use and allows you to create fleets to keep track of your friends. Im sure the site owner is around and can do a better job of selling all of its benefits.
https://farkwar.com/

[Jon Hacking]

Sorry to hear Yotreps went away

We use Winlink, but you have to be a licensed Ham radio operator. You can specify just your callsign, to get your own track for the last year, which is what we do on the bottom of our homepage.

You can also use ShipTrack.org, but if you click on the link (which shows our track) you'll see that they can take a long time drawing your previous positions, as they remember back a long time.

Once you find a service you like that displays what you want, putting that in an iframe on your own site is pretty easy. Our main problem is that neither of these provide a way to edit an entry once you've submitted it.

[Paul L]

Jon
From the Winlink page it says that position reports are deleted after a year. I was hoping for a continuous database that lasted longer.
I use shiptrack as my map display but they load the positions from my Yotrep reports.

[Jon Hacking]

Yes, Winlink tracks are only for the last year. I wish they lasted longer myself. They let you download the last year & then you can load it into your own Google Earth map, but that's about it.

[wrwakefield]

We and many others we know have had very good results using Farkwar.com for several years. [Developed and supported by a fellow cruiser...]

We update our position [with annotations] via a templatized email. You can also add/edit/delete entries online using the web interface.

There are many other options available, but so far Farkwar has suited our needs well.

Cheers! Bill

[sbmesafirstmate]

Hi Paul -

We used Sailblogs for our blogging and position reporting. I know you use a different blogging tool so this might not be so convenient for you.

I am listening in to see options out there as we are teaching Cruise Planning now for our local boating club and need to be current!

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by sbmesafirstmate

Hi Paul -

We used Sailblogs for our blogging and position reporting. I know you use a different blogging tool so this might not be so convenient for you.

I am listening in to see options out there as we are teaching Cruise Planning now for our local boating club and need to be current!

I've always had a problem with Sailblogs as it is so convoluted to post multiple pictures in a single blog. Just turns me off on it.

[Paul L]

Well after two recommendations for the Farkwar site I decided to try it. So far no joy. None of my positions sent from Sailmail/Airmail show up on the site.

[gpeacock]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Well after two recommendations for the Farkwar site I decided to try it. So far no joy. None of my positions sent from Sailmail/Airmail show up on the site.

Hey Paul
I just checked out Airmail settings and Farkwar is missing one important instruction.
In addition to creating an entry in the address book with your secret email and checking the box "Add Position Footer to this address" you must also setup airmail to send positions in the first place.
You can do this as follows:
In airmail, click on Window/Position Reports and then click on the footer tab.
Check the Position footer check box and then click setup. You can leave the footer code at default.
You should then see you location in the preview area.
Farkwar should then work fine.
I'd post screen shots of all this but the forum makes it difficult. Let me know if you need better instructions.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by gpeacock

Hey Paul
I just checked out Airmail settings and Farkwar is missing one important instruction.
In addition to creating an entry in the address book with your secret email and checking the box "Add Position Footer to this address" you must also setup airmail to send positions in the first place.
You can do this as follows:
In airmail, click on Window/Position Reports and then click on the footer tab.
Check the Position footer check box and then click setup. You can leave the footer code at default.
You should then see you location in the preview area.
Farkwar should then work fine.
I'd post screen shots of all this but the forum makes it difficult. Let me know if you need better instructions.

GP
Thanks. I tried that. On his Help there is a second note saying to also setup tbe attach positions option.
It would be a lot simpler if the email format desired was just posted in the directions and a user could post it without any invisible footers.
I see that there are a ton of boats registered who have zero positions posted, so I suspect a lot of people just give up.

[wrwakefield]

Originally Posted by Paul L

GP
Thanks. I tried that. On his Help there is a second note saying to also setup tbe attach positions option.
It would be a lot simpler if the email format desired was just posted in the directions and a user could post it without any invisible footers.
I see that there are a ton of boats registered who have zero positions posted, so I suspect a lot of people just give up.

Paul,

Following is one of our Farkwar position reports sent via satellite email. [UUplus in this case— but the email source hasn't mattered in our experience. However, I haven't tried it with SailMail as we are not currently subscribers...]

Note their syntax requires the 5 dashes [-----] in the line immediately following any comments/log notes— followed by a carriage return— in order to identify the location coordinates. The few times we fired blanks was because an email client changed the 5 dashes into something else [a solid line, not dashes...]

To: "Farkwar Position Report" <YourSpecialAddress@report.farkwar.com>
Subject: Farkwar Position Report- Wrangell Island
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:30:14 -0900

Thu, 2–Nov-2018: Wrangell

We are back in our slip in Wrangell. The fall weather pattern is in full swing…

Now we can work on some more boat projects while at the dock…
-----

At 2–Nov 2018 02:22 (UTC) our position was 56 27.3962 N 132 22.9912 W

Also, the creator of Farkwar has always been very responsive to support requests in the past...

Best wishes getting it up and running.

Cheers! Bill

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by wrwakefield

Paul,

Following is one of our Farkwar position reports sent via satellite email. [UUplus in this case— but the email source hasn't mattered in our experience. However, I haven't tried it with SailMail as we are not currently subscribers...]

Note their syntax requires the 5 dashes [-----] in the line immediately following any comments/log notes— followed by a carriage return— in order to identify the location coordinates. The few times we fired blanks was because an email client changed the 5 dashes into something else [a solid line, not dashes...]



Also, the creator of Farkwar has always been very responsive to support requests in the past...

Best wishes getting it up and running.

Cheers! Bill

Bill
Thanks, I'll try a manually formatted email. I sent in a couple support questions with no response so far. Hopefully the site owner is off cruising somewhere.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Bill
Thanks, I'll try a manually formatted email. I sent in a couple support questions with no response so far. Hopefully the site owner is off cruising somewhere.

+1 for Farkwar

We also do it by email. It can also be fussy about how the coordinates are entered. I've had some issues with spaces as I grab mine off an iPhone app called MYGPS oordinates rather than transcribe them by hand. Here is our email template using a slightly different nomenclature.

This is a Farkwar position test

We are currently at dock.

-----
At 28/06/2018 10:15 (pdt) our position was 49°11.3095′N,123°56.8367′W
Destination: Nanaimo